Maria Dahvana Headley

A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of the much-buzzed-about novel The Mere Wife Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf—and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world—there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us. A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history—Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation of Beowulf, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation.

A New Translation

Beowulf

New York Times bestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley presents a modern retelling of the literary classic Beowulf, set in American suburbia as two mothers—a housewife and a battle-hardened veteran—fight to protect those they love in The Mere Wife. From the perspective of those who live in Herot Hall, the suburb is a paradise. Picket fences divide buildings—high and gabled—and the community is entirely self-sustaining. Each house has its own fireplace, each fireplace is fitted with a container of lighter fluid, and outside—in lawns and on playgrounds—wildflowers seed themselves in neat rows. But for those who live surreptitiously along Herot Hall’s periphery, the subdivision is a fortress guarded by an intense network of gates, surveillance cameras, and motion-activated lights. For Willa, the wife of Roger Herot (heir of Herot Hall), life moves at a charmingly slow pace. She flits between mommy groups, playdates, cocktail hour, and dinner parties, always with her son, Dylan, in tow. Meanwhile, in a cave in the mountains just beyond the limits of Herot Hall lives Gren, short for Grendel, as well as his mother, Dana, a former soldier who gave birth as if by chance. Dana didn’t want Gren, didn’t plan Gren, and doesn’t know how she got Gren, but when she returned from war, there he was. When Gren, unaware of the borders erected to keep him at bay, ventures into Herot Hall and runs off with Dylan, Dana’s and Willa’s worlds collide.

A Novel

The Mere Wife

The stunning sequel to Maria Dahvana Headley’s critically acclaimed Magonia tells the story of one girl who must make an impossible choice between two families, two homes—and two versions of herself. Aza Ray is back on earth. Her boyfriend, Jason, is overjoyed. Her family is healed. She’s living a normal life, or as normal as it can be if you’ve spent the past year dying, waking up on a sky ship, and discovering that your song can change the world. As in, not normal. Part of Aza still yearns for the clouds, no matter how much she loves the people on the ground. When Jason’s paranoia over Aza’s safety causes him to make a terrible mistake, Aza finds herself a fugitive in Magonia, tasked with opposing her radical, bloodthirsty, recently escaped mother, Zal Quel, and her singing partner, Dai. She must travel to the edge of the world in search of a legendary weapon, the Flock, in a journey through fire and identity that will transform her forever. Told in Maria Headley’s trademark John Green–meets–Neil Gaiman voice, Aerie is sure to satisfy the many readers who can’t wait to return to the spellbinding world of Magonia.

Aerie

Neil Gaiman

Chosen and introduced by Neil Gaiman, this thoroughly beguiling collection of short stories is inhabited by an amazing menagerie of creatures from myth, legend and dark imagination. Now available in paperback.

Unnatural Creatures

Claire North

James Smythe

Kamila Shamsie

Amal El-Mohtar

Kirsty Logan

E. J. Swift

Nnedi Okorafor

Monica Byrne

Sophia Al-Maria

Sami Shah

Catherine King

Hermes

Jamal Majoub

J. Y. Yang

K.J. Parker

Kuzhali Manickavel

Nada Adel Sobhi

Saad Hossein

Usman Malik

A fascinating collection of new and classic tales of the fearsome Djinn, from bestselling, award-winning and breakthrough international writers. Imagine a world filled with fierce, fiery beings, hiding in our shadows, in our dreams, under our skins. Eavesdropping and exploring; savaging our bodies, saving our souls. They are monsters, saviours, victims, childhood friends. Some have called them genies: these are the Djinn. And they are everywhere. On street corners, behind the wheel of a taxi, in the chorus, between the pages of books. Every language has a word for them. Every culture knows their traditions. Every religion, every history has them hiding in their dark places. There is no part of the world that does not know them. They are the Djinn. They are among us. With stories from: Nnedi Okorafor, Neil Gaiman, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherine King, Claire North, E.J. Swift, Hermes (trans. Robin Moger), Jamal Majoub, James Smythe, J.Y. Yang, Kamila Shamsie, Kirsty Logan, K.J. Parker, Kuzhali Manickavel, Maria Dahvana Headley, Monica Byrne, Nada Adel Sobhi, Saad Hossein, Sami Shah, Sophia Al-Maria and Usman Malik.

The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories

Desperate to resurrect Antony after his suicide, Cleopatra strikes a bargain with Sekhmet, goddess of death and destruction. Cleopatra is transformed into a vampire, an immortal shapeshifter of superhuman strength-- and yearning for revenge as much as she craves human blood.

Queen of Kings

Kat Howard

The End of the Sentence

Hannu Rajaniemi

Usman T. Malik

Sofia Samatar

Brooke Bolander

Eugene Fisher

Ben Loory

Adam Ehrlich Sachs

Carmen Maria Machado

Talented, diverse, and bold - the new voices of fantasy are breaking all of the rules.

The New Voices of Fantasy

Gods won’t save you. Gods will break you. Nevertheless, you will persist. And become anew. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.com Original

The Girlfriend's Guide to Gods

#1 New York Times bestseller Maria Dahvana Headley’s soaring sky fantasy Magonia is now in paperback! Since she was a baby, Aza Ray Boyle has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name. Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found by another. Magonia. Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—but as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war between Magonia and Earth is coming. In Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

Magonia

A playwright describes how she decided to accept a date with every person who asked her out for an entire year, including a millionaire who lived with his mother, a gay actor, and a divorced man with kids whom she ended up marrying.

The Year of Yes

Laird Barron

Indrapramit Das

Catherynne M. Valente

Kij Johnson

Rachel Swirsky

Kaaron Warren

Nathan Ballingrud

Gemma Files

Joe Lansdale

Chinelo Onwualu

Through the work of twenty-six writers, emerging to award-winning, The Humanity of Monsters plumbs the depths of humane monsters, monstrous humans, and the interstices between. In stories by turns surreal, sublime, brutal, and haunting, there are no easy answers to be found. Featuring Nathan Ballingrud, Laird Barron, Polenth Blake, Leah Bobet, Indrapramit Das, Berit Ellingsen, Gemma Files, Neil Gaiman, Maria Dahvana Headley, Kij Johnson, Joe R. Lansdale, Yoon Ha Lee, Rose Lemberg, Livia Llewellyn, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Meghan McCarron, Sunny Moraine, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Chinelo Onwualu, Sofia Samatar, Rachel Swirsky, Sonya Taaffe, Catherynne M. Valente, Kaaron Warren, Peter Watts, and A.C. Wise.

The Humanity of Monsters

Yoon Ha Lee

S. Qiouyi Lu

Melissa Marr

Charlie Jane Anders

Stephen Graham Jones

Sarah Pinsker

Brian Evenson

K.M. Szpara

Lavie Tidhar

Rich Larson

Tamsyn Muir

Fran Wilde

Carrie Vaughn

C. L. Polk

Maureen F. McHugh

Naomi Kritzer

Katharine Duckett

Zin E. Rocklyn

G. V. Anderson

Carolyn Ives Gilman

M. Rickert

Matthew Pridham

Gregory Norman Bossert

Claire Wrenwood

Jeremy Packert Burke

Justin C. Key

A collection of some of the best original science fiction and fantasy short fiction published on Tor.com in 2020. Includes stories by: Charlie Jane Anders G. V. Anderson Gregory Norman Bossert Jeremy Packert Burke Katharine Duckett Brian Evenson Carolyn Ives Gilman Maria Dahvana Headley Stephen Graham Jones Justin C. Key Naomi Kritzer Rich Larson Yoon Ha Lee S. Qiouyi Lu Usman T. Malik Melissa Marr Maureen McHugh Tamsyn Muir Sarah Pinsker C. L. Polk Matthew Pridham M. Rickert Zin E. Rocklyn Rachel Swirsky Lavie Tidhar Carrie Vaughn Fran Wilde Claire Wrenwood At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2020 Edition

Nebula Award-nominated author Maria Dahvana Headley has always loved Damon Runyon's stylized faux-reporting on New York City. This is her version of a Runyon tale—this one dealing with the architectural guys and dolls of New York City—and a valentine to all the beautiful buildings she knows. It's Valentine's Day, 1938, and the Chrysler Building's tired of waiting on the corner of Forty-second and Lex for a certain edifice to notice her. Here's the story of what might happen if two of New York's greatest creations met on a day built for romance. This short story was acquired and edited by editor Liz Gorinsky. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.Com Original

The Tallest Doll in New York City

The Krakatoan

Jeff VanderMeer

Jeffrey Thomas

Jeffrey Ford

Chen Qiufan

Paul Tremblay

Michael Blumlein

John Langan

Karin Tidbeck

Joseph S. Pulver Sr.

A.C Wise

Richard Gavin

John R. Fultz

Anne-Sylvie Salzman

Livia Llewellyn

Anna Taborska

Scott Nicolay

Damien Angelica Walters

Kristie DeMeester

Simon Stranzas

W.H. Pugmire

Welcome to the weird! Acclaimed author and editor Laird Barron, one of weird fiction's brightest exponents, brings his expert eye and editorial sense to the inaugural volume of the Year's Best Weird Fiction. No longer the purview of esoteric readers, weird fiction is enjoying wide popularity. Chiefly derived from early 20th-century pulp fiction, its remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity, and a healthy helping of the outré. At its best, weird fiction is an intersecting of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the Laws of Nature. It is not confined to one genre, but is the most diverse and welcoming of all genres. Hence, in this initial showcase of weird fiction you will discover tales of horror, fantasy, science fiction, the supernatural, and the macabre. Contributing authors include Jeffrey Ford, Sofia Samatar, Joseph S. Pulver Sr, John Langan, Richard Gavin, and W. H. Pugmire.

Year's Best Weird Fiction

Jo Walton

Alyssa Wong

Seanan McGuire

Kameron Hurley

Nisi Shawl

Tor.com's science fiction and fantasy flash fiction collection originally published in 2017 inspired by the now-iconic statement, now available in e-book format. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted. Three short lines, fired over social media in response to questions of why Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the floor of the United States Senate, for daring to read aloud the words of Coretta Scott King. As this message was transmitted across the globe, it has become a galvanizing cry for people of all genders in recognition of the struggles that women have faced throughout history. Three short lines, which read as if they are the opening passage to an epic and ageless tale. We have assembled this flash fiction collection featuring several of the best writers in SF/F today, including Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherynne M. Valente, Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kameron Hurley, Nisi Shawl and Carrie Vaughn. Together these authors share unique visions of women inventing, playing, loving, surviving, and – of course – dreaming of themselves beyond their circumstances. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Nevertheless She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project

New York Timesbestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley's fierce, feminist retelling of the classic tale of Beowulf. To those who live there, Herot Hall is a paradise. With picket fences, gabled buildings, and wildflowers that seed themselves in ordered rows, the suburb is a self-sustaining community, enclosed and secure. But to those who live secretly along its periphery, Herot Hall is a fortress guarded by an intense network of gates, surveillance cameras, and motion-activated lights. Dylan and Gren live on opposite sides of the perimeter, neither boy aware of the barriers erected to keep them apart. For Dylan and his mother, Willa, life moves at a charmingly slow pace. They flit between mothers' groups, playdates, cocktail hours, and dinner parties. Gren lives with his mother, Dana, just outside the limits of Herot Hall. A former soldier, Dana didn't want Gren, didn't plan Gren, and doesn't know how she got Gren. But now that she has him, she's determined to protect him from a world that sees him only as a monster. When Gren crosses the border into Herot Hall and runs off with Dylan, he sets up a collision between Dana's and Willa's worlds that echoes the Beowulf story -- and gives sharp, startling currency to the ancient epic poem.

Astronaut

Goddess of Flame

Maria Dahvana Headley

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